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Nominating Committee for 2012 Reiterates Call for Nominations

2012 AHA Nominating Committee, January 2012

Editor's Note: In the following communication, Page Herlinger, the chair of the AHA's Nominating Committee for 2012, reminds members of the opportunity to nominate colleagues or themselves to AHA elective offices. Members may recall that the first call for such nominations was published in the October 2011 issue of Perspectives on History.

Dear AHA Members,

The AHA's Nominating Committee for 2012 will meet in late January to recommend two candidates for each of the following positions:

President-Elect (by rotation, Europe)

Vice President of the Teaching Division

Councilor Profession, serving on the AHA Council and on the Professional Division, which deals with the rights and responsibilities of historians, professional conduct, the job market, data collection, membership, and professional service prizes.

Councilor Research, serving on the AHA Council and on the Research Division, which promotes research and new research tools, governs relationships with fellow professional organizations, establishes and awards research grants and fellowships, oversees the American Historical Review and the annual meeting, including appointing the chair of the Program Committee.

Councilor Teaching, serving on the AHA Council and on the Teaching Division, which supervises AHA educational activities and the Association's educational publications, promotes history education, and encourages new methods of instruction and cooperation in the development of curricula and other teaching activities. A K–12 teacher traditionally has held this position.

One member of the Committee on Committees, which names members to appointive committees, including book prize committees, standing committees, grant and fellowship committees.

Three places on the Nominating Committee, which nominates candidates for all the elective offices and elective committee positions.

Recommending nominees to the Nominating Committee is one of the most significant ways members can affect AHA policy and administration. The process is open. When making nominations, the committee tries to secure representation of all viewpoints, backgrounds, academic interests, all kinds of institutional affiliations as well as unaffiliated historians, and teachers at all levels of the educational system. In short, the committee aspires to have the Association governed by members as diverse as our profession.

To accomplish this goal, we need your help. Please propose yourself or any friends and colleagues who you believe can serve the Association in any of these positions. If you think the AHA has not adequately represented some constituency—as defined by type of institution, type of history studies, or personal characteristics—then please make a special effort to bring potential candidates who will do so to our attention. If possible, send a potential candidate's c.v. and ask others to write in support. But even if you cannot find time to do so, the committee will take every recommendation very seriously and secure information itself. To help us do so, please send us the recommendee's e-mail address if you can. Since the Nominating Committee (listed below) consists entirely of faculty from four-year institutions, we are particularly grateful for recommendations of people in parts of the profession where we have fewer connections of our own: public historians, community college teachers, K–12 teachers, etc. The same is true of recommendations for the graduate student slot on the AHA Council, since the graduate students we know best—those at our own institutions—cannot serve as long as we ourselves continue to do so.

The only restrictions are these:

A nominee must be a member of the Association. If you know good citizens in the profession who you hope will serve the AHA at some point, encourage them to join. You need not check on a potential candidate's membership yourself; the committee can do so.

The AHA wants to avoid concentrating leadership positions in a few institutions. Therefore, for all open positions with the exception of the President-elect, we will not nominate candidates from institutions that are already represented among officers and on elective committees. A list of those institutions follows. However, we maintain files of potential candidates recommended to us, so don't let this stand in the way of recommending someone for future consideration.

List of currently "blocked" institutions: Autry National Center; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Irvine; University of California, Los Angeles; University of California, Santa Barbara; Colgate University; Colorado College; Columbia University; Cornell University; Georgetown University, George Washington University; University of Houston, Louisiana State University, University of Memphis, Montville Township High School, Rice University; Rutgers University-New Brunswick; University of Texas at Austin; University of Washington; and University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Please forward your suggestions as soon as possible (but no later than January 16), with any supporting material you can provide, to the AHA Nominating Committee, c/o Sharon K. Tune, 400 A Street S.E., Washington, DC 20003-3889; you may fax to the same addressee at (202) 544-8307; or email, with supporting material as attachments, to any of the committee members. Since the Nominating Committee meets over a weekend (Saturday and Sunday), please provide home and/or cell numbers, if possible. All contact information would be considered strictly confidential, and for the sole purpose of reaching the potential candidate over the weekend. Please feel free to send general comments and make general recommendations about the Nominating Committee's responsibilities to any of its members.